


Tricks of the Fates

by QuillerQueen



Series: Greek Mythology AUs [8]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Greek Mythology AU, Implied/Referenced Abuse, troy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27290593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillerQueen/pseuds/QuillerQueen
Summary: Troy AU inspired by a lovely manip by @Phoenix_Shine and the character of Briseis (in which Achilles is not the love interest). Unedited, all mistakes mine.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Robin Hood, Outlaw Queen
Series: Greek Mythology AUs [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871809
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Inspired By Outlaw Queen





	Tricks of the Fates

__

_Not again._

They’d taken her family first. They’d held a dagger to her throat, struck her in chains, and strung her over a horse’s back while they slaughtered everyone she ever loved. They hadn’t forced her to watch; she couldn’t look away.

Then they’d taken her home. Wounded by swords, spears, and arrows, Lyrnessus had been devoured by roaring flames. The city’s last breath had clouded the ruins in acrid smoke.

And now the man who’d led the sack of her city (and so many others), the greatest hero among the Greeks, her captor and protector, was gone, too.

_Not again._

First there had been the swift-footed one. He hadn’t much enjoyed her defiance, but he cared too little to mete out harsh punishment to his new slave, his latest trophy. Indeed, he’d cared about little beyond fame and the companion who’d barely left his side (they called the youth great-hearted, and for once she’d found merit in the epithet).

Then there had been the commander in chief, king of kings, lord of men. The days and nights spent in his tents had seemed interminable. She’d been shocked to feel relief when returned to her previous master.

And now? Now she was to be sold again. No, not sold—handed over. Handed down to whoever the next rung on the ladder of heroism was. Changing hands like the mere prize she was to them—such was the fate of women captured by the enemy. Regina was one of many. She was not special.

_I can bear it. I can bear anything._

Amidst the omnipresent stench of sweat and blood hanging over the battlefield and invading the camp, his tent smelled faintly of green woods and brown earth.

“Welcome, my lady,” he said as he stepped out of the shadows.

Regina, though she’d learned to master her features, raised her shackled hands an inch: _I am no guest here._

At the rattle of chains, his eyes darkened. He unsheathed the dagger at his waist and stepped close. Regina fought the instinct to recoil—if she were to die for her daring, she’d die with whatever last scraps of dignity still remained.

Death didn’t come with her burning candle, nor did Regina feel the sting of a blade on her skin. He was fiddling with her manacles—one gave in, but the other gave him trouble. She stared at his wrinkled brow, at his calloused hands as they worked the lock.

“There’s a key,” she muttered.

“That there is,” he shrugged, as if he couldn’t bother with trifles such as demanding the keys to her freedom, as her chains fell to the ground. “Better?”

Regina squinted at him, massaging her bruised wrists. Was she to thank him for the grand gesture? If she refused, it might cost her dearly...and yet.

“I do prefer having free use of my limbs, yes.”

“Well, you shall have it. I’m afraid our hands are somewhat tied,” he grinned apologetically at the turn of phrase, “but what freedom I can offer you, you shall have. Within this tent, between just the two of us, we are equals. If we both survive this war, you are free the moment we leave these bloody shores.”

There it was—the catch.

“So I must leave with you.”

To his credit, he didn’t deny it.

“I’m afraid so. A precaution, if you will. My ship will drop you off at the port of your choice.”

That was too good a deal to be true.

“Why should I trust you?”

“Why would I lie?”

“Perhaps you like your women...compliant.” Some enjoyed the screaming; others preferred the pretense of mutual enjoyment.

He nodded, his broad shoulder slumping—in defeat? Shame?

“About that…” He fixed her eyes with his. “I shan’t so much as lay a finger on you, worry not.”

“What’s her name? Or his?”

“Was. Her name was Marian.”

“I’m sorry.” It slipped out without permission—and why would she feel sympathy for him? But she did. Something about the way his eyes went soft with the shadow of love lost. Regina knew the plight...and apparently her heart hadn’t rotten completely yet. 

“As am I.” He gestured to the cushions strewn on the ground. “Will you sit?”

“Only if you tell me yours,” she raised an eyebrow.

“Robin of Arcadia.”

“Regina of Lyrnessus.”

* * *

Robin was an open book. He shared stories from life before Troy, both happy and sad tales from the green pastures and forests scattered within the mountainous embrace of his homeland. When he spoke of Marian, he had that peculiar look in his eyes, a nostalgia born of love lost. He said he couldn’t picture what life would be after the siege at Troy ends, if there even was to be a life for him. 

They had that in common at least.

Robin was an open book, but Regina had been burned one too many times before. She approached him with caution. She listened to him speak and sought signs of lies or deception in the lilt of his voice or the twitch of his lips—to no avail.

This man wore his heart on his sleeve, and she might scoff at that, but she also admired him for it.

She, on the other hand, spoke little of herself.

After all, what did she have to offer—and why would she offer it to her gaoler?

Yet he was growing on her. When he came back from fighting bruised and weary, she’d help wipe him clean. Not because she had to—he neither ordered nor expected her to. Perhaps that was why she did it. She’d wash his wounds, soothe his aches, slather him in poultices of her own design. She cared— _cared,_ and when had she started caring again?—whether he lived or died.

“Would you...?” he whispered one feverish night, sweat-slicked and half-delirious.

“Would I what?” she replied, biting her lip because by the gods, maybe she actually would. Whatever comfort she could offer, she would.

“...talk...” he breathed.

He wanted to hear her voice. He could have asked for more wine to ease the pain, for a healer, or… Instead he just wanted to hear her voice.

_A_ voice. He wanted to hear _a_ voice. She just happened to be the one around.

* * *

She spoke little of herself—or so she thought.

Robin heard her, though. From her gestures, from her glares, from the banter they developed and rather relished in, he gleaned knowledge the magnitude of which shook her to the core one day. Unusually bashful, he handed her an object wrapped in the most delicate cloth he possessed—a pendant, hand-carved, of a rearing horse.

“For lack of ability to present you with a real one,” he said almost apologetically. “To hold onto until the day comes when you can ride again.”

She didn’t remember ever mentioning her love of horses, or her beloved childhood prized steed, but he must have picked up on her enthusiasm somehow.

Regina felt stripped of armour in a way she hadn’t before.

He saw too much. She’d let him see too much. And yet...he never looked at her with anything but warmth.

He’d sworn, on the day they first met, not to touch her—and he never, not once, went back on his word.

“Will you—?” she asked, though the words barely left her lips, and brushed her hair aside for Robin to put the pendant on.

His fingers lacked their usual deftness, but didn’t linger.

The ghost of his touch, well, that was another matter.

* * *

“You must leave.”

“What?” she stared blankly. “I can’t leave. None of us can.”

“We’re retreating.”

His jaw clenched ever so slightly in a way she recognised from whenever he tried to bluff during a game they used to play.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Regina—,” he stepped closed, his voice nothing short of a plea. “I’m asking you, please, please trust me. My crew—the Merry Men—will have instructions. They will see you to safety.”

“And you?” He tried to brave her gaze, but even he must have knows it would be futile. “It’s a trick, isn’t it. Don’t answer—you haven’t broken your oath yet. But I know. You’re a terrible liar, Robin of Arcadia.”

“I’m a better thief than a liar, that much is true.” Another step closer—now they were bare inches apart. “No one must know, Regina. Not even my men.” His gaze dropped briefly to his feet. “If the plan doesn’t work, we will all die. There’ll be no saving us. The remaining forces will have orders to abandon Troy, and us, to our fates. The Merry Men will want to defy commands. Don’t let them.”

“I’m a slave, Robin,” she said in a hollow voice she no longer recognised. “Nobody takes orders from me.”

“You’re much more than that, Regina. You always have been. You’re a leader—perhaps not in title, but in every other capacity. They’ll listen.”

Where did this unshakable faith in her come from?

“They’ve known you longer,” she objected. Then anger sprang in her chest, burning hot. “What gives you the right to ask this of me?”

“Nothing. Nothing gives me the right. I ask as a—as a friend.”

“Friends don’t leave friends for dead.”

Her voice cracked on the last, cursed word. It snapped like a twig, the traitor. That wasn’t the only betrayal either—her eyes burned, her throat closed.

_Not again._

Robin stood there, cuirass and sword and a gentleness in his eyes, ready to depart from this life and thinking of others’ before himself.

He never reached for her—true to his word, always—but his arms opened for her the moment she sought his embrace. Something fluttered in her chest—some beast she’d long shunned to a far, forgotten corner of her heart. It wasn’t its place to rear its head now, with them like this, but there was no point fighting it.

She couldn’t even fight back the damn tears any longer.

“Be free, Regina,” he whispered into her hair—

—and then he was gone.

* * *

The lights of the city flickered in the night as the Greek ships made for the island of Tenedos to take cover.

The deck swayed beneath Regina’s feet. Her stomach lurched with every breath. The impenetrable darkness played tricks on her senses.

Freedom was so close she could touch it, and yet…

_I cannot bear it._

_But I must._

It would be the whole day until the signal came—if the plan was a success.

And even then—even if the Trojans were reckless enough to break down their own defences to drag a trophy horse into their besieged city—a number of things could go wrong. Robin might be discovered and killed in its wooden belly. He might make it out as planned but be killed in the ensuing skirmish. The impending massacre.

Troy would burn.

How could Regina wish for the success of the enemy? These were the same Greeks that had come for her city and turned it to rubble, the same Greeks that had slaughtered her loved ones and turned her heart to stone, the same Greeks who’d enslaved her and used her as a bargaining chip only to discard her hosrlty after.

Robin was one of them.

Robin was the enemy.

Robin was not her enemy.

Was he a friend? Was that why her stomach had closed into a fist? Out of fear for a friend?

* * *

Troy was burning.

By the time the Greek fleet reached the shore, the sky over the city glowed orange. Men poured from the ships, feet beating the sand of the beach and the dirt of the battlefield. Through the gates they went, all of them thrown wide open by their sneaky comrades.

Regina was among them, too, wielding neither sword not shield, only a measly dagger and a frantically hammering heart. Her knees buckled at the scene so reminiscent of the one in Lyrnessus—screams filling the air, the clang of weapons in the streets, and the hollow echo of her own heartbeat in her ears. Slipping on spilled wine and spilled blood, she saw it: the wooden horse, the treacherous gift that brought about the fall of the golden city after ten years of fruitless siege, aflame like everything else.

A viselike grip around her waist; a cold blade at her throat.

_Not again._

The dagger was no match for swords or spears, but she had an advantage—nobody expected a woman to hold her own in a fight. Regina had trained. And she had suffered. The man before her, leering and taunting her, was no longer Greek or Trojan but a beast of war, given wholly to bloodlust.

And all of a sudden Regina saw red.

* * *

The temple outside the razed city walls was in ruins, but it was empty at least. There was a pool to wash the blood off her hands. It would never fully come off—her very soul felt tainted now.

“Regina? Regina!”

_Robin._

He, too, was covered in blood and gore, but when his arms closed around her, she didn’t care about filth or blood.

Surely this couldn’t last—he would see soon how horrible she truly was.

Any moment now.

But instead he held her as if she were the only anchor in a sea of calamity.

“Come,” he said. “Freedom awaits.”

Maybe his soul was hurting, too.

Maybe they were meant to heal together.

Maybe it was time to leave the ashes of their pasts behind.


End file.
